I MAY BE CRAZY BUT NOT THAT CRAZY

I MAY BE CRAZY BUT NOT THAT CRAZY
OLIVIA JOHNSTON + JENNIFER STEWART
MAY 12 - JUNE 4, 2017 | HASHTAG GALLERY
Selected as a Featured Exhibition for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, 2017

I May Be Crazy But Not That Crazy consists of photo-based work that explores issues of mental health, identity, gender, and online behaviour. Drawing from their own virtual and real relationships, Olivia Johnston and Jennifer Stewart have created visual representations of the bridge between constructed and authentic identities. Johnston’s works are a response to a long-term experience of receiving strange and distressing online messages. Her pre-existing mental illness intensified the ongoing immersion in feelings of isolation, self-loathing, and fear. Working in the spaces between digital and analogue photography, she explores the cracks that exist in our virtual selves. Stewart’s work explores the intimacy of a romantic relationship and the struggle with mental illness that occurred within it. Hand-printed images paired with text portray a complex and convoluted duality between two people and several identities; additionally, her audio works connect dreamlike imagery to reality. Both artists channel art as a means to reconcile broken trust, deception, and encounters with the fabricated self.